CHAPTER TWENTY
( HOPE LIKE HELL. )

THE beginning of the end started with the arrival of the Rebel fleet.

Kit hadn't seen it, couldn't see anything beyond the blue barrier of Scarif's empty sky. She had no idea they'd come at all until she heard Bodhi clambering through the shuttle's metal halls, shouting her name like a curse, over and over until she had no choice but to listen.

The younger Rebel turned, her dark eyes finding the pilot a second before he reached her, distracted for a moment from the five soldiers she was meant to be addressing. "What is it?" She asked, already running through one thousand possibilities in her mind until the former Imperial's words stopped her short.

"The Rebel fleet are here," he panted, eyes so wide she was scared they'd fall straight out of his skull. He was pale, paler than she'd ever seen him, and without realising it she knew then what waited for them all. "They've engaged the Imperials outside the gate. The whole base is in lock down."

Kit felt a thousand emotions flood through her at once — confusion, elation, pride, fear — too fast for her to latch onto. But one question sat on the end of her tongue, burning her from the inside out. "The gate?" She asked, and somehow knew Bodhi understood. He shook his head, and that was answer enough for her. The gate was closed.

She felt her heart rate pick up, her mind racing, trying to come up with a way out. If they somehow managed to get the plans, and if by some miracle they made it out of the Citadel alive, then there was still no way off of the planet. And if there was no way off of the planet, then the plans weren't going beyond Scarif's atmosphere. For them, Scarif was no better than a planet-sized tomb. She didn't realised she'd voiced her thoughts out loud until it was too late, "We're trapped."

"So what do we do?" The new voice belonged to Tonc, one of the Rebel's who had stayed, but even his voice betrayed the crushing fear that pressed down on them all.

"We lock down the shuttle," Kit said, "and hope like hell our fleet finds a way through that gate."

The men nodded like that was all the encouragement that they needed, like every doubt that they had was consoled by the same idea that led them all here to begin with — hope.

As the men moved out again Kit closed her eyes, steadying the tremor in her hands that had plagued her since they'd arrived. When she opened them Bodhi was still there, looking as grim and scared as ever, and she couldn't be more glad for the company. "When we get out of here remind me to buy you a drink" she said, "The Force knows we both need it."

Bodhi flashed a brief smile and managed to laugh, and for a second the two sat that way, pretending that failure wasn't closing in around them.

• • •

KIT sat with her back pressed to the hull of the ship, her shirt stuck to her spine by the humidity of the Scarif atmosphere. The barrel of her blaster was pointed persistently at the boarding ramp of the shuttle, her eyes stuck to the world outside like it would shatter if she blinked. The weight of the mission hung over the cabin like a storm about to break, a leaden weight resting on the shoulders of all the soldiers who hid there.

"All right," the sound of Bodhi bounding out of the cockpit startled the brunette into looking up. Her eyes met with the shaken looking pilot, who pushed his goggles up his skull with one sweat-stained palm and let out a shaky sigh. "We're going to have to go out there."

Without waiting for anyone in front of him to reply Bodhi's eyes flickered around the cabin like a nervous hare, and he began rifling through the cargo crates loaded in the corners of the room. Kit stood up, her blaster now aimed at the floor, her expression stretched into disbelief. "What are you talking about?" She asked, "Why outside?"

Bodhi pulled a spool of cable loose from the tangle of tools and cargo, forcing himself to meet the woman's burning eyes. "They closed the shield gate. We're stuck here," she knew he was stalling by telling her everything she already knew, and gave him a second to draw in a shuddering breath before he went on. "But the rebel fleet is pulling in. We just have to send a signal strong enough to get through to them and let them know we're trapped here."

Kit's eyes narrowed, and somehow she sensed that calling for a rescue wasn't the only thing on Bodhi's agenda. "Okay," she nodded, "So we plan an escape. That still doesn't explain why you need to go out there."

"For that? To get the signal out with the shield gate shut? We need to connect to the communications tower; it's the whole point of the thing, to let the Citadel keep talking to the rest of the Empire without opening the defences," he took a deep breath, knuckles turning which under the pressure of his grip on the cable. "Now I can patch us in over here, out on the landing pad. But you have get on the radio, get one of those guys out there to find a master switch."

Kit shook her head, conflicted between her duty and the overwhelming sense that their mission was collapsing in around them, one mistake at a time. Bodhi kept talking over her own internal argument, "You don't build a comm tower just anyone can access. There's mechanical, physical connections controlled by the switches, and the switches are like the data vault — totally off the network. I only know this because —" Bodhi faltered, and Kit noticed the expression of brief fear that flickered across his face, before he rerouted his words and continued on anyway, "Get one of the soldiers, Baze or Chirrut, someone, to activate the connection between us and the comm tower. Otherwise we're not going anywhere and the data tape stays on Scarif. Okay?"

Kit heaved a deep breath of hot air and sighed, readjusting her sweaty grip on her blaster. She thought of a thousand alternatives to sending Bodhi out alone, none of which ended with either of them alive, and settled by stating, "You're not going out there alone."

He nodded tightly, and Kit took her cue to turn back to the other men in the cabin, all of whom stated at her expectantly. "Well?" She asked them, "You heard the man, someone get on the damn comlink!"

Tonc raised his own link, pinned between two shaking fingers, "Right here."

"Open the line," Kit told him, "Let Melshi and his crew know what they're looking for."

Tonc's face squeezed into a painfully confused expression. "What are they looking for?" He asked, "What does it look like?"

"Bodhi?" Kit turned to the pilot, who was busy stuffing tools into the deep pockets of his flight suit. The former Imperial paused, looking over to her to repeat the question. "The switch? Where is it? What're we looking for?"

Bodhi looked like he was going to laugh, either with disbelief or amusement she didn't know, and let his hands fall from the spool that was strapped across his back. "Here," he reached for the com, "Let me talk to Melshi."

"Okay, the rest of you listen up," Kit pointed to the others in the cabin. "If Bodhi gets caught out there we won't do him any good by guarding the ship. Cover the route, find cover behind the crates. Without him the tape doesn't leave leaves this planet. Am I clear?"

"Clear boss," murmured one of the smaller boys, who could've only been seventeen or so. She ignored his obvious youth, and let a small grin play on her lips at the sound of his soft accent.

"Boss?" She nodded in satisfaction, "I think I like the sound of that."

• • •

BODHI Rook was shaking. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Quaking was probably more accurate. He felt it, his heart, slamming against his ribs like a caged beast, rattling him right down to his core. He squeezed his hand into a fist, trying to hide the fear rattling his finger-tips.

"Bodhi?" Kit snapped her fingers in front of the pilot's blank face, dragging his eyes back to the brunette in front of him. "Did you hear me?"

"Yeah," Bodhi nodded absently and readjusted the cable strapped across his back. "Wait for your signal, then run as fast as I can."

Kit nodded, satisfied he'd understood some of what she'd told him. "This doesn't work without you, Rook. Every man on that platform is there to make sure you make it back — don't waste it."

Bodhi crushed his lips into a tight line, and the shaking in his hands slowed to a steady shudder. Kit grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it, searching for the words he needed to hear and coming up empty. So instead she checked her blaster and strapped it against her waist, giving the pilot a final nod before she dropped through the cavity in the ship's floor and onto the tarmac.

The landing pad was a maze of discarded cargo crates, the harsh sun bouncing off their metallic bodies and crystallising into a shattered collage of amber light above them. She felt the heavy air of Scarif's atmosphere press down like a heavy weight on her lungs, flecks of fire and smoke from the burning jungle staining her cheeks and making her dark eyes water.

One of the rebels out on the landing pad gestured to her wildly, and the brunette sank into a low crouch as she ran out to meet him behind the glistening metal crate. "It's all clear out here," Tonc told her, wiping the beading sweat from his forehead and managing to smear a long trail of ash across his face instead.

Kit nodded, unstrapping her blaster as she surveyed the forest beyond the concreted landing space. White and cream coloured armour winked in and out of view like a warning sign, and she knew that they'd be overrun by troops the second they were seen. So her only option was to make sure she stayed alive long enough to get Bodhi back to the ship.

She signalled the pilot that the landing zone was clear, and Bodhi took off. She watched him, her finger playing with the trigger of her gun, as he disappeared in between crates on his way to the control console. Every fibre in her ached to follow him, but if she was spotted now then any chance they had of making it home would go up in smoke faster than she could reload her blaster.

One minute passed, then two, and Kit began to wonder if Bodhi had even made it to the console at all.

"Look," Tonc nudged the rebel's shoulder with his elbow, pointing to the vague figure of Bodhi moving back through the crates, a trail of cable spilling across the ground behind him. "Here he comes."

Kit readjusted her blaster to catch him in her viewfinder, watching him emerge from the crates and sprint headlong towards the ship. But before he made it the cable snapped tight, jerking the pilot back a few steps before he turned and realised that the rest of his cable had run out. Kit's mouth went dry, her heart sinking to her stomach as she watched Bodhi desperately begin to retrace his steps, trying to find where the cable had snagged during his run back.

And just when she thought that the situation couldn't get worse she felt Tonc's elbow jab her in the side. "Kit," he elbowed the brunette again, "Look. We've got company."

The rebel pilot looked up, her dark eyes finding the metal entry point to the citadel right as the door opened and a squadron of sandtroopers poured through the entrance, their oddly formed armour flashed the colour of rotting teeth against the harsh grey tunnel mouth they emerged from. They spotted Bodhi instantly, calling out across the pad: "Hey you! Identify yourself."

Kit was already readying her rifle by the time Bodhi turned around, the cable still clutched in his sweating palms. "Should we fire?" Tonc asked.

"Wait," Kit grabbed the barrel of her companion's gun before he could try and shoot the troopers as they closed in on Bodhi. She waited until they came within a few feet of the pilot, close enough for a clean shot, before she released Tonc blaster and steadied her own. "Now."

"I can explain—" Bodhi's words fell short as Kit felt the rifle's trigger slide under her finger, a bright crimson bolt tearing through the air and striking the neck of the nearest trooper, killing him instantly. A myriad of bullets joined hers, falling each trooper on the pad and causing enough chaos for allow Bodhi to drop on his knees and scurry to the safety of a crate.

For a few seconds the Imperial's stood no chance. Without cover Kit picked them off cleanly, but she knew that this was nothing more than a distraction at best. Soon enough reinforcements would arrive, it was the only thing she could count on.

So instead of waiting for death to find them the brunette Rebel checked her blaster pack and sucked in a deep, ragged breath, then hoisted her body over the metal crate without giving herself a chance to rethink her decision. She slid over the opposing side with ease, breaking into a run before her feet had the opportunity to hit the tarmac.

From his hiding place behind a crate Bodhi watched her dig a small metallic cylinder from her pocket and catapult it over her shoulder without breaking stride. The cylinder hit the landing pad and rolled a few feet towards the amassing squad of troopers, it's side glowing with the hue of a bright red blinker, and then it detonated.

Bodhi flinched back into hiding as fire engulfed the landing pad, the sound of helmeted screams pale against the roar of the fire as it swept briefly over the tarmac. Kit turned, sheltering her face from the flames as the fire swept over her back, heat singing her neck and arms before dying out as quick as it had come. She didn't need to look back to know that the citadel tunnel that had once been filled with Imperials was now nothing more than a tangled tomb of molten metal.

"Rook!" She called out to the pilot, who peered out from behind his crate to see her. She waved at him wildly. "Come on!"

Bodhi didn't have to be told twice, bursting out into a run to meet the girl on the other side of the landing zone. Kit kept her blaster high as she followed the pilot towards the ship, firing at any soldier unlucky enough to step too far onto the landing strip. The barrage of bullets that had once belonged to the rebels was thinning, and she knew that everyone who wasn't dead already probably would be soon — a sum which included her too.

Bodhi reached the ramp first, heading into the ship to hook up the cable and follow through on his absurd plan. Kit knelt at the base of the ramp, covering him while he completed the set up. She knew that he'd done it when she heard the scream of triumph from his position in front of the console, and in that same second some small part of her wondered if maybe this was all going to pay off.

"We're in!" Bodhi called to her. "Baze, Chirrut, they connected us!"

"Then what are you waiting for?" She shouted without taking her eyes off the troopers who were now accumulating in numbers, too many for her to hold them off for much longer. A bullet skimmed by her, close enough that she could feel the heat of it touch her cheeks. "Do it!"

She heard the static of the radio, soft against the sound of blaster fire, and Bodhi began to shout into the headset. She didn't know if he got a reply, she was too busy trying to make sure they didn't die. There was more than ten of them now, all firing at her, and she knew that her cover by the side of the boarding ramp wasn't going to last much longer.

She saw one of them pull out a small canister, so similar in shape to the one she'd used only minutes prior. She aimed at his chest and pulled the trigger, killing him, but not before he'd managed to hoist it towards the open mouth of the cargo shuttle.

"Bodhi!" The scream hadn't even left her mouth before the entire shuttle burst into a brilliant globe of fire. The force of the explosion pulled Kit off her feet, throwing her through the air like a child flinging around a doll. For one impossible second Kitra Erso was airborne. The heat pulled the air from her lungs, the roar of the fire climbing over every sense she had. And then she hit the ground.

Pain exploded over her body as she connected with the floor, her skull cracking painfully against the harsh tarmac. The world faded into a bloody transcript of fire and metal, her ears ringing too loud to think over. She tried to breathe and realised that the stitching in her shoulder has come undone, her own jacket stuck to her back by her own blood.

She tried blinking but her vision was nothing but a messy patchwork of smoke and blood, a thousand images burned into her retina like a kaleidoscope. And through the chaos one thought stood out to her like a bright neon sign: where was Bodhi?

"Bodhi," she tried calling to the pilot, but the sound faded into a hacking cough. She rolled over, ignoring the protests of her wounded arm, and spat blood onto the black tarmac beneath her, trying again. "Bodhi!"

No answer. She forced herself to roll onto her stomach, every nerve ending screaming against the effort, and pulled her knees up beneath her. The scene was all too familiar, the memory of losing her father brandished over her mind like an open wound. Not again, she begged silently, not this time.

She coughed, putting one hand in front of the other as she crawled through the wreckage that had once been their ship. "Bodhi!" Salt air pressed against her open wounds, metal shards tearing now ones into her exposed palms, but she crawled on anyway, dark eyes searching desperately for the familiar Imperial insignia printed onto the pilot's navy suit.

She found him half-submerged beneath metal sheeting and meshed wires. His dark eyes stared thoughtlessly at the blue sky that stretched overhead, blood still rolling from his still lips as Kit pulled herself over to his side. "Bodhi," she murmured, bloodied hands grabbing shoulders of his flight suit. "Rook," she jerked his body once, and the sinking feeling in her stomach widened into a hollow pit, so deep and large she was scared it would pull her in entirely.

"Come on, Rook, don't do this," her own voice sounded coarse and soft. It belonged to someone broken, not her. Not Kit. She didn't even realise she was crying until she felt the tears stinging the wounds of her cheeks."Bodhi please."

She felt her grip on his shoulder grow limp, letting him fall slack against the twisted metal she'd found him on. Dead. As dead as her mother, as her father, as Saw Gerrera and every other person who she'd cared for. She hated the familiarity of it all, the numbness that gripped her bones and settled on her lungs like ash. He didn't deserve this. He hadn't murdered, hadn't left people for dead. Bodhi Rook was a good man. Not like her. Guilt smothered her, thicker and more poisonous than the smoke that plagued the air, and some part of her knew that she deserved to be the one lying there instead of him.

A bright crimson bullet exploded into the metal by her side, making the brunette flinch. The Empire didn't grieve on the battlefield, and they weren't giving her the chance either. Ahead of her, and closing in fast, was a single sandtrooper, the soldiers tanned armour smudged with grease and dirt. A second bullet flew by her head, and Kit fell back on her hands, scrambling to find a weapon after losing her own in the explosion.

Her hand clasped around a twisted metal plate, which she swung in front of her in time to block the next bullet aimed at her chest. It's your fault, some part of her screamed. She ignored it, watching the sandtrooper draw closer. Bodhi's dead, Cassian and Jyn are next. You led them here. For what? So you could feel like a hero? Ten metres, eight, five. So close she could see his her reflection in his visor.

He raised his blaster to aim at her again.

Kit jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain that pulsed down her spine, and rammed the metal into the trooper, knocking him off his feet. She followed him down, landing on top of him and bringing the metal down on his helmet. The glass encasement of his visor cracked, and Kit brought it down again. Once, twice, ten times. Over and over until the solder stopped struggling, until his helmet was a bloody mess and the metal dripped with gore and fractured plastic. Over and over until she couldn't see him for the tears that stained her vision.

Once the solider stopped struggling Kit tossed the metal to the side, crawling over him to grab his discarded blaster and checking the charge. You're a killer Kitra, the voice told her, how many more people have to die before you realise that you'll never win?

"Shut up," she muttered, slamming the blaster case closed and getting to her feet. This couldn't be for nothing. They'd come too far, lost too many, for this to be for nothing. All she needed was one more chance.

She imagined what Saw would say if he saw her like this, covered in blood and smoke, searching for any way to make the Empire bleed. Would he be proud? Probably not. Saw Gerrera wouldn't be satisfied until she was six feet under, or until they won.

Her eyes found themselves wandering towards the smoke-filled sky, littered by the sleek glittering shapes of aircrafts. Distantly, she recalled her sisters words: one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose could seize the day. Well she had nothing to lose, and something far better than a sharp stick. Her grip tightened around the gun in her hands, and she started out towards the Citadel and, more prominently, the aircraft lockers.

• • •

lmao happy new years bitches. it's me again, back from the grave to finally finish this trash story because i love my bb kit and want her to get the heroes end she deserves. i apologise for the shit chapter but i really want to get this completed soon so i can actually edit this mess of a book.